UTRECHT, Pays-Bas, October 6 /PRNewswire/ -- The website http://www.studychoice.nl has been expanded to include informative pages about master's and bachelor's degree programmes in the Netherlands, including the latest English-language programmes. Examples include the brand new research master's programme Lifestyle and Chronic Disorders (VU, Amsterdam) and the recently accredited International Business and Management Studies programme (Webster University).

These pages provide all features conveniently arranged by programme, so they are clear at a glance. Moreover, international students can quickly and efficiently compare other students' opinions about the programmes, higher education institutions and even Dutch cities. The degree of openness that the site offers regarding students opinions is unique.

Abundance of information

The website provides an abundance of objective information about more than 2500 study programmes in the Netherlands. Since the Netherlands is becoming increasingly popular as a study destination for international students, it's important to present Dutch study options as transparently as possible and in a user-friendly fashion.

To this end, http://www.studychoice.nl guides visitors to the website in three simple steps to their choice of study programme. The site provides extensive information about which language the course is taught in, the duration of each programme, educational requirements, tuition fees, job market options, accreditation and related fields of study.

You decide the criteria

Visitors to the website select their own criteria to compare courses, such as students' opinions about the quality of course content, degree of course difficulty and job opportunities. All the scores are presented in a table. Visitors can also compare the facilities of the higher education institutions themselves: for instance the price of a basic sports card, the library and sports centre's opening hours and students' opinion about the quality of the canteen. Because there's more to life than study, visitors to the website also can compare basic facts by city, such as the average rent for student rooms, the student population and even the number of bars.

The Netherlands has become even more appealing to international students since the introduction of the bachelor-master system. Other attractive factors include the high international standing of Dutch research and the fact that half of the master's programmes and about two hundred bachelor's programmes are now taught in English. Moreover, the immigration procedures for international students were simplified in 2007.

The site http://www.studychoice.nl is the most comprehensive site with information on higher education in the Netherlands. All courses included on the site are accredited and all higher education institutions mentioned have endorsed the Code of Conduct.

Background

The http://www.studychoice.nl website is collaboration between Studiekeuze123 and Nuffic, the Dutch Organisation for International Cooperation in Higher Education. The representative bodies of the higher education institutions (HBO-Raad, VSNU and PAEPON) and the students' organisations (LSVb and ISO) are jointly responsible for http://www.studychoice.nl. The project is financed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and implemented by SURFfoundation (the higher education and research partnership for ICT in the Netherlands).

Note to editors: For further information, contact: Wilma de Buck, Studychoice.nl Programme Manager, T +31-30-234-6600 or +31-6-29157507; Anne van Voorthuizen, Studychoice.nl Project Coordinator, T +31(0)30-234-66-00 or vanvoorthuizen@surf.nl.